Free to Be. You. And Me.

I have an affection for quotes and poems. Sayings. Passages from novels that are small moments of brilliance. I am always clipping these out of books or printing them from the computer and pasting them in different places around my apartment. They often keep their power for a few days, but they just as quickly fade to background, becoming only squares of white paper accenting the wall paper and paint. I will remember to pause and read them now and again, enjoying their cadence but never again fully feeling the meaning that they held at the first, when their discovery seemed somehow destined, a sign from the Gods. These are my latest discoveries:

"What will dissolve is the residue of the past idea of the self; and with it the story that there is anything to prove."

cast off 
the past idea of "self"
and ascend
to the true name
that lives deep within.

"But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things."  (Thanks to my dear letter-writing friend Rob for this one).

It is always the case that when words discover me (or I discover them), we find each other because we have something to offer each other. I give the words admiration and a square of cabinet space, and the words give me that which they've been trained to give: a nice, neat (and more often than not, miraculous) little bundle of clarity. Here is what you've been trying to muddle through, they seem to say. Here is what you've been attempting to express. Yes! I say, and go to find my scissors and scotch tape. Thank you. 

Lately, though, my search for these neat bundles seems to have become a bit frantic. I am a tidy person, a perfectionist at heart, and I don't like the messiness of emotion, though I am, ironically, a person given to very strong emotion. Words have always been a way of nicely organizing any unruly feelings, any confused notions, and when even words seem to fail me, I am at an utter loss. How will I figure it out if I can't tie it up neatly in a sentence? A paragraph? Ten pages? 

Even now, as I work on this post, I find myself drawing a bit of a blank. So I'll aim for simplicity and directness. What I find myself confronted with lately, is the idea of self. Or rather, the totally confused and still forming idea of self. The idea of self has long been one I've grappled with, but in recent years (and growing at an ever accelerating rate in the past few months, weeks, and days) it is a notion that doesn't want to leave me alone. Try as I might, I can't seem to find the perfect quote to encapsulate the idea for me. Even those above only touch upon pieces of what I've been trying to figure out.  

I suppose my question is: what are we really trying to do, to be, when we give ourselves the challenge of 'just being ourselves'? What is someone really saying when they charge you with the crime of trying too hard, or with the inability to ever really be yourself? I am often confused and frustrated when people tell me to 'just be myself'. I want to ask them: Who do you think I am trying to be? The notion of a 'self', cognitively and psychologically, is such a complex one; it is as if we've been charged with the task of taking on another life, another being, aside from the one that encases us in skin and bone, and charged with scripting it into view. 

While the idea does challenge me--and perhaps always will--I have decided lately, to try and overcome my frustration in lieu of my own mode of figuring out. I'm going to quiet the neat word bundles that try to tell me what it's all about. I'm going to ignore those who say 'just be yourself', as if this were the simplest task in the world. For me, for now, it's not a simple task. It's a daily, conscious decision. Maybe some would tell me that I shouldn't have to work so hard at it; that's fine. That's their 'should', not mine. I am not going to task myself with the pursuit of some unrealistic, golden plane where all else falls away and I am forever, purely my 'self', no matter my environment, its people and business and weather. Instead, I am going to work daily to be my most centered self--the one who gets the lucky work of strength, peace, love, and faith. All of my other 'selves' are no less real, no less authentic, they're just a bit less fun. They're the selves who do the work of fear, sadness, anger, pettiness, vanity, and weakness. When we're being guided by them, we might not like it, but they take their jobs seriously too. How do we get them to quit? We can't. We can only take away a bit of their power.

What does make sense to me is this: In order to find--again and again--our most centered selves, we must go to the places, the things, the people, the pursuits that make us feel most 'real'. 

Here's my working list: 

Sarah, Robin, Anna, Sally.

This place: 48.07 N. 114.08 W. 
And this: 46.35 N. 112.02 W.

Writing. Running. Reading.
The moments just after yoga class. (Though not necessarily the moments during it.)
Cooking in my tiny kitchen. 
Dancing in my tiny kitchen when I hope no one's looking. 
Laughing with my sisters on the phone. 
Listening to my father's voice, reciting, as we stand in a church pew. 
Looking at my mother's hands. They are mine, mine are hers, years between. 
Walking in sunshine, in rain, in falling snow, on frozen, or melting, or fertile ground with a small orange dog. 
Holding my cat--when she'll allow it--and letting her purr vibrate through me. 

Carole King. James Taylor. My parents' vinyl collection.
The drive east, over the Divide towards my childhood home. This drive in the bleakness of a Montana winter. 
The east side shore of Flathead lake. 
Sylvan Road. 
Plaid shirts. Worn jeans. Woodsmoke. 
Raking leaves. Shoveling snow. 
Molding pie crusts. 
Harvesting my garden. 
Gin and tonics in summer. 
Old Fashioneds in winter. 

Giving my touch to others. Giving a listening ear. Giving my patience. Giving my love, ever fully. 

Thanks for reading. 

Beth